Akhenaten's And Tutankhamen's Families example essay topic

The Origins of Akhenaten There is much that is known about Akhenaten the heretic pharaoh. More lies in speculation. Since his time, the Amarna period is one the ancient Egyptians themselves wished to forget much about Akhenaten remains unknown. What we do know is often confusing, different hypothesis piled upon each other make it difficult to distinguish what is fact and what speculation. We do know that Akhenaten, or Amenhotep IV, was the second son of Amenhotep, an 18th Dynasty pharaoh and his Queen Tiye. Although we know he had an older brother Thutmose and several sisters, he was never shown in family portraits or records, the only documented proof we have linking him to Amenhotep is a wine seal with his name and the inscription "estate of the true king's son Amenhotep".

One of the theories why Akhenaten was never shown with his family is that he suffered from some sort of disease such as Froehlich syndrome (tumor of the pituitary gland) or Marfan syndrome. His elder brother the original heir to the throne died early and this could support the theory that there was a genetic defect running in the family. If this was the case however, why would the royal family hide Akhenaten from public view, if both sons suffered from the same disease? Both Froehlich syndrome and Marfan's syndrome correspond with some of the physical characteristics Akhenaten is portrayed as having, the full lips, elongated ear lobes, long arms and fingers, misshapen head, high cheekbones, slanted eyes, paunch belly, breasts and full hips and thighs. The first to offer the hypothesis that Akhenaten suffered from Froehlich syndrome was Dr. G.E. Smith, however, some facts do not fit this hypothesis. Victims of Froehlich syndrome are usually attributed with mutation resulting in impotency.

This seems unlikely, even though Akhenaten is in some images portrayed without his sexual organs, we know he fathered six daughters and possibly a son Tutankhamen. It can be argued both that Akhenaten really looked like this or that his portrayal is simply a result of the changing art forms during the Amarna period. The evidence on hand could point either way, for example Egyptologists have argued that the fact that Akhenaten is sometimes portrayed as more or less normal looking points to his other portraits as being the result of the changing art form. The counter argument is of course that Akhenaten may only look normal because the artist fashioned the portrait after the Egyptian beauty ideal of the pharaoh as you muscular and healthy, or because the artist himself changed. Again, in some portraits of Akhenaten and his family usually during the early period of his reign, his daughters and sometimes his wife Nefertiti are shown as sharing some of his deformities, his daughters certainly are usually shown as having highly unusual head shapes. Since the shapes of the heads of the princesses correspond with that of Tutankhamen's, it is possible that they really were result of a genetic defect on Akhenaten part, though they were no doubt exaggerated.

Another factor supporting the theory that Akhenaten suffered from Marfan syndrome is the unusually informal settings in which both Akhenaten's and Tutankhamen's families are portrayed. The royal family is shown as always touching, images of Tutankhamen and his wife Ankhesenamen also show the couple as always touching each other. This could quite possibly suggest that besides being a close family, Akhenaten and Tutankhamen may have been blind to some degree, due to ailments such as cataracts, , detached retinas or glaucoma; all symptoms of Marfan's. On the other hand, there may have been nothing wrong with Akhenaten, Tutankhamen, his supposed son does have an irregularly shaped skull but it is not enough to be called abnormal. It is indeed possible that the stylization of the pharaoh in this way was an artistic expression of the religious changes taking place during the Amarna period.

Akhenaten became heir to the throne after his brother's death that much is clear. There is a discussion as to whether Akhenaten was Amenhotep's co-regent during the last five or so years of the old kings life. One point in favor of this theory is that the distinct art style associated with the Amarna period appeared several years before the death of Amenhotep and is generally thought to have been introduced by Akhenaten. On the other hand there is no evidence to support the assumption that both art forms could not have existed at the same time.

When Amenhotep died, he left his temple to Amun at Karnak partially finished, structurally it was complete but it lacked its decoration. Akhenaten finished his fathers work decorating the pylons on flanking the great temple with mostly traditional scenes. The only thing that was new about these decorations was on the southern pylon, which was graced with a new inscription: .".. he who rejoices in the horizon n his name 'Sunlight that is in the Disc'". Akhenaten thus signed his fathers work with his own name. This according to Donald Redford marked the beginning of Akhenaten's strive for change. When he decided to celebrated a jubilee, he apparently ordered his artists to portray him as he differentiated from his subjects.

This supports the theory that artistic expression may have been an explanation for the many differences in the ways Akhenaten is portrayed in the early years of his reign; the way his physical attributes fluctuate so heavily between two extremes may be the artist's responsibility, trying to flatter the pharaoh and be life like in turn. Even though Akhenaten is credited with being the first monotheist of history, he did not come up with the idea of the Aten all by himself. The Aten had not always been a god in itself but more part of the personification of Re as the sun disc. Amenhotep I claimed that after his death he would join the Aten and pharaohs after him were believed to join the sun after their death. Under Amenhotep it gained more significance, after his first jubilee, we find more and more relief's featuring him as the sun god Re in his solar boat. Further, he is said to have built a temple near that of Amun's in Thebes and have dug an artificial lake in his wife's home city of Tc haru and on the day of the festival to celebrate its building, he sailed it with a boat named Aten- "Beauty of the Aten".

Though Akhenaten at first seems to have indulged the existence of the other gods, he finished his father's temple to Amun and continued to offer up sacrifices to him. It is however of importance to observe that he adopted the title of: High-priest of Ra-Here-kh uti, the exalted one of the horizon, in his 'name of Shu who is in Aten,' upon his succession to the throne, showing that while he may have still been supporting the old gods outwardly, at least privately he may have already adopted the Aten as the only god. After he had been in power for a couple of years, Akhenaten decried the old gods as being false, closed down their temples and pronounced there was only one god, the Aten. He abandoned the capital of Thebes and relocated to a location in the desert where he founded an entirely new city he named Akhetaten.

There is much debate concerning whether Akhenaten really was a religious prophet or it the reign of the Aten was not simply a political stunt. At the time of Akhenaten's reign, the priesthood of Amun had steadily been growing in power; possibly they were becoming powerful enough to threaten pharaoh himself. By establishing a cult with only one god and removing power from all other cults, Akhenaten made himself the power center. He and his wife were the Aten's high priests and became the only link between the population and the Aten. Though he established temples to the Aten, Akhenaten had successfully removed power from the priesthoods of traditional Egyptian deities. Akhenaten seems to have pretty much ignored the actual running of the country, on his stella outside Akhetaten he proclaimed that he would never leave the city.

It is unclear why he neglected the actual running of the country. It is possible that he was too busy with the worship of the Aten to pay attention to the running of the state; it is also possible that Smenkhare who is said to have been Akhenaten's co regent for a short period took care of this side of and after his death it was neglected. It is also possible that Akhenaten truly did believe in the Aten and everything it stood for and the military requirements did not fit in with his ideals. Akhenaten is shown in his reliefs as being a family man, so it is possible that he was somewhat of a pacifist.

Whatever the reasons, the running of the state and the army seem to have been neglected to the point where Akhenaten was blamed for the decline of the Egyptian empire. Akhenaten died 18 yeas after he came into power; it is unclear what he died from as his body is believed to have been taken from the royal tomb to be destroyed. His wife Nefertiti had disappeared from view several years before as had his second wife Kiya, believed to be the mother of Tutankhamen. About a year after his death, upon Tutankhaten's accession to the throne, the decision was made to revert back to the old days, when Egypt was still thought to have been in its prime. The old gods were reinstated and Akhenaten's son and daughter changed their names to Tutankhamen and Ankhesenamen. Under their reign, and the reign of the pharaohs Aye and Horumheb who followed them, all memories of the Amarna period were eradicated.

Akhenaten, Tutankhamen and Aye were purged from the list of kings and Akhetaten was razed to the ground. It is believe that the mummy of Akhenaten was destroyed; it is certainly true that there is great difficulty concerning the burial places of Akhenaten, Tiye, Nefertiti and many other people of the Amarna period. The one thing that is clear is that the reign of Akhenaten was highly unpopular with someone in power, all though it was almost a tradition for pharaohs to cut each others names from their statues and claim them for there own, there was a deliberate attempt to pretend that the Amarna period never happened. Akhenaten The Heretic King, Donald B Redford, Princeton University Press, 1984 Moses and Monotheism, Sigmund Freud, New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1947 The Life and Times of Akhenaton, Arthur Weigall, New York G P Putnam's Sons, 1923 Akhenaten Egypt's false Prophet, Nicholas Reeves, Thames and Hudson, 2001.